Giving Power: Generosity brings more happiness than indulging self

That’s the challenge for 44 college students participating in the Mercy Works Synergy program in Syracuse. Although they might be tempted to buy new clothes, a video game or a nice meal, the young people have until Friday to use the money to help someone else and prepare a report about the experience.

One student decided to give her $100 to Salvation Army’s Barnabas House. She stayed at the teen shelter last summer and wants to “give back to other teens.”

Other giveaways include sending money to a 17-year-old cousin who is in jail and buying baby supplies for a pregnant 17-year-old sister. One young woman bought bed linens and decorations for an 18-year-old transient who finally has a room of her own.

“Her shock just made my day,” said Keewan Thomas, a Corcoran High School graduate. “How she reacted to having these small items I take for granted really opened my eyes.”

The students are learning important lessons about charity, kindness and generosity. That’s what Bill and Sabra Reichardt, of Manlius, had in mind by helping to fund the money giveaway.

“Long ago we realized the power of giving and the joy it brings,” Bill Reichardt told the college students.

Reichardt’s assertion is more than do-gooder rhetoric. “Happy Money: The Science of Spending,” a new book by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, argues that it’s not earning more money that makes people happy; buying for others does.

Writing in the Sunday New York Times, the two noted that people with a comfortable standard of living are generally happier than people living in poverty. But after people reach a certain income — the researchers put it at $75,000 a year — additional income does not make them happier.

The researchers studied a national sample of Americans and found that people thought they’d be twice as happy if they earned twice the money. But people who earned $55,000 were only 9 percent more satisfied with their lives than people making $25,000.

As the Mercy Works students are learning, people find more happiness in spending their money on others rather than themselves. This finding was reinforced by research with toddlers and goldfish crackers. The children were happiest when sharing the crackers with a monkey puppet than if they gobbled them all themselves.

So maybe that axiom, “Money can’t buy happiness,” is wrong. Money can buy happiness. You just have to spend it right.